Rhonda Wasserman

Rhonda Wasserman consistently receives high marks as a teacher from both her students and colleagues. She received the Law School's Excellence-in-Teaching Award twice, once in 1990 and again in 2005, and she received the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2000. Her scholarship focuses on class action practice and other forms of aggregate litigation, although she has written on a wide range of other procedural topics. Her scholarship has been published in such journals as Southern California Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, and Boston University Law Review. She has written a treatise on procedural due process. Professor Wasserman is a John E. Murray Faculty Scholar and, during the fall 2016 semester, she was a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

Professor Wasserman is an elected member of the American Law Institute and serves on several of its Members’ Consultative Groups. She serves as faculty advisor to the Pitt Law Women’s Association and the Pitt Legal Income Sharing Foundation. She served as the Reporter to the Local Rules Committee of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania from 2001 to 2009. She has served on the board of directors of the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Before joining the Pitt law faculty in 1986, she practiced law with the New York firm of Shereff, Friedman, Hoffman & Goodman.

Awards and Honors

Dukeminier Award, granted by the Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law (2009)

Elected Member, American Law Institute (2004)

Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award (2000)

Excellence in Teaching Award (2005)

Excellence in Teaching Award (1990)

Selected Professional Activities

Member, Consultative Group on Restatement (Third) of the United States Law of International Commercial Arbitration (2009-present)

Member, Advisory Board, British Institute of International and Comparative Law project on The Effect in the European Community of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters: Recognition, Res Judicata and Abuse of Process (2007-08)

Member, Consultative Group on Aggregate Litigation of the American Law Institute (2005-09)

Reporter, Local Rules Committee of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (2001-09)

Member, Advisory Committee for the Study of Rules of Practice, United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (2003-present; pro tem 2001-03)